Anonymous jerks invaded one of my favourite northern blogs this week. I have a bit of a soft spot for Townie Bastard, considering that we have almost identical career arcs. He made the mistake of commenting on the nastiness we're seeing in the American election. Apparently someone wanted to make it clear that the nastiness can be extended to people who aren't involved with politics and just happen to have personal blogs.
It is probably my background as a reporter, but I do not like anonymous Internet assholes. I am convinced that if you want to be taken seriously, you should post under your own name or under a handle you use consistently. (Like "Torq", AKA Philosopher King.) I allow anonymous jerks to post here because I believe that it is the best way to show the rest of my readers what idiots they actually are. If they were at all interested in having a conversation with people who simply disagree with them, they would be more open about who they really are.
The funniest thing is that people aren't actually anonymous in the north. This place is too small to allow for true anonymity. By trying to hide, they only look more pathetic. I do occasionally get anonymous drive-by insults from people like the PETA wackos, but they are complete morons who usually can't string a sentence together. (This is still my favourite reader-submitted complaint of all time.)
I'm glad I read blogs written by people who feel the same way I do. I want to read those nasty anonymous comments. They almost always reinforce my belief that the blogger was right in the first place.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Geez.
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4 comments:
Years ago, this girl started following me through online forums and onto my personal blog commenting with nothing but "cunt!" after whatever I wrote. With a bit of digging, I uncovered that she was associated with a girl who had a falling out with a friend of mine.
I did a little more digging and, after the latest intelligent display of "cunt!" replied that I knew how she had found me, with whom she was associated, and the home address of said person. I concluded that I really did not want to have to go to that girl's house and lecture her about sending her goons to bother me.
That chick backed right off and told me I was psycho for digging up that information. I still maintain that I am not. Psycho would have been getting that information and screaming, "I'm gonna effing burn her house down while she's sleeping in it!" All I did was point out that these folks couldn't hide behind their monitors and avoid consequences.
The moral of this story is that anonymous weenies forget that someday, someone will smack them upside the head like they deserve.
The anonymous commenters are like barnacles on the great ship Internet. Or something. I think we can all agree that they are trolls.
I have in the past been a supporter of PETA, but never an active member. My level of animal activism is more on an ASPCA level, but PETA's website has great vegetarian recipes. However, the stuff they do with naked women does not align with my idea of feminism, and yeah, they do attract a fair amount of nutjobs who tend to give anti-fur activism a bad name.
Your all-time favourite copmlaint makes me laugh and yet, at the same time, enraged that someone can be so ignorant. There is a bit of sadness in it as well.
Anonymous is for people who can't back up their claims and just want to be closet ignorants. Sigh, such is life I guess.
I think anonymous people think they can beat me on my own blog. That they can swoop in and make the perfect argument that I am immoral/an idiot/a puppet of some monstrous authority. (I got a few of these from the CBC about a year ago.) That I will be powerless to respond to their criticisms because I won't know who they are. The joke's on them: I know who everyone is.
I'd be a lot more willing to consider their arguments if they were open about their identities. I totally respect people with differing opinions -- in fact, I encourage debate on everything I post -- but people who hide behind anonymity deserve to be mocked.
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